Systematic Composition and Analyzability of Dependable Networked Embedded Computing Systems

Abstract

In the past decade, the application field of networked embedded computing systems (NECSs) has been showing gradual acceleration in its growth. A great majority of NECSs are subject to some fault tolerance requirements. In other words, in their application environments, the fault rates of some components, e.g., communication links, batteries, some chips, etc., are not negligible. So, research interests in fault-tolerant (FT) NECSs have been showing growing trends in the past decade in good contrast to the relatively stagnant research interests in more traditional branches of FTC such as FT data servers, etc. In particular, object-/component-oriented (OO/CO) structuring techniques for RT distributed computing systems have been established in highly promising forms with convincing demonstrations although they are still very slow in spreading through industry. Such OO/CO structuring techniques not only lead to efficient design of RTC application systems with considerably reduced labor and improved maintainability but also enable design of complex systems yielding analyzable and yet tight response time bounds. On the basis of such foundation for designing RTC systems, research in FT NECS can now proceed with much improved effectiveness and confidence